Area One Farms Research 2017: Cover Crops

What’s Up?

Our Cover Crops have been planted and their coming up! East view: 20 acres of Ultimate Forage Blend, 20 acres of Pinpoint Blend. Down to Earth, 20 acres of Ultimate Forage Blend with one tillage style and 32 acres of Ultimate Forage Blend with a different tillage style.

Seeding Plot 11 and 12

Seeding DTE 52 acres

Results

Good emergence @ Eastview with volunteer canola problemSolid Weeds on one section of Down to Earth plotPoor Emergence where it came at all – a good rain could surely help!

The No-till seeded crop wins! Sort of! The Eastview plots have far better emergence with the dry conditions since seeding. There is a great stand and if we can catch a rain, these fields will explode with plant life.

One challenge is that Roundup Ready Canola has come on strong in the crop. This after the land was sprayed to control that in the original wheat. Canola has not been planted on this land for four years so it was a real surprise how much came after a spring control pass. We are now using the comb cut to try and keep the canola from seeding itself further. Note to self: you have to really think about weed control for cover crops. In this case we didn’t consider that a crop 4 years ago in the rotation would still be a significant factor. With chemistry, this volunteer canola is easily handled in the rotation, but spray options are much reduced for multi-species cover crops. This is something to learn about…

The tillage seeded plots at Down to Earth are a disaster. Emergence is extremely poor and without rain, we are getting a ton of weed pressure. It is a huge dilemma what to do. We’ll keep you posted!

Up Next!

Our in-crop testing is next on the agenda: We will be doing 7 tests on the plots: Water infiltration test, Pentrometer, EC, pH, Brix and Solvita C02 tests. Should be interesting!
July 22, 2017